One day I will disembark from this plane with a plan
and an orange to hand you. There is bitterness

in food. I least want to die in a plane crashing
into the night, the flower’s moon. The cliff side

opening up to hold our bodies entombed. You
are my great friend and I know almost nothing

about you. Do you have a brother who loves
to look like you? This plane is rushing through

the air and it’s full of strangers with whom I
might die if we hit some nasty turbulence

or the pilot needs to pay his dues. At the beginning
of every journey, I imagine every person I love

surrounded by glowing white light keeping them
safe and afloat. I picture this plane buoyed by magical

manna from my brain-heaven just in case
it helps. I’m most afraid of the time it would take

to fall from the sky: so much space to make the wrong
decisions before death. Would my Mom prefer

a phone call for presence during my final moments
as she was at my first? Or would the crashing metal,

the strangers calling out to their Gods,
haunt her for life? I couldn’t live with myself

if I peed my pants. It is one of my personal goals
not to piss myself in the face of death.

If I die by firing squad I will stand up straight
and die dry. I’ll hold it like a real hero.

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Trenna Sharpe is originally from Chattanooga, Tennessee where she graduated from the University of Tennessee in 2011. She is now working toward an MFA in poetry at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where she also teaches. Her poems have appeared in Poetry Miscellany, the Sequoya Review, Industrial Lunch, and a chapbook (#7) by The Lifeboat, out of Belfast, NI.